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Celebrating National Log Cabin Day

In some areas National Log Cabin Day is celebrated today (June 25), but some organizations celebrate this holiday on the last Sunday in June (this year it falls on June 28, 2015). Log cabins have always been the type of house that symbolized simplicity and humbleness to me. The original log cabins, constructed as simple one or one and a half story structures did not have the architecturally sophisticated look, compared to other houses built with more complex designs and materials.

The log cabin, a house built from round rather than hewn, or hand-worked, logs, is often known as the first generation of home building erected quickly for frontier shelter. Today, you will find many log cabin mansions that evolved from the initial hand-built log cabin blueprints to more sophisticated architectural structures with modern accoutrements.

According to Wikipedia, few log cabins dating from the 18th century still stand, but they were not intended as permanent dwellings. Possibly the oldest surviving log house in the United States is the C. A. Nothnagle Log House (ca. 1640) in New Jersey. When settlers built their larger, more formal houses, they often converted the first log cabins to outbuildings, such as chicken coops, animal shelters, or other utilitarian purposes.

When I think about western TV shows like Daniel Boone, staring Fess Parker (ran from 1964-1970), at that time we equated the simplicity, survival and ruggedness of life linked to the iconic log cabin. In real life, Daniel Boone was an American pioneer, explorer, a woodsman, and a frontiersman, whose frontier exploits made him one of the first folk heroes of the United States.

Yet, the log cabin holds great nostalgia for frontier living, where necessity became the mother of a historical invention and humble way of living! Go visit a site where there is a log cabin in your area, whether it’s in the mountains or on prairie. Happy National Log Cabin Day, regardless of when you celebrate it.